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| FEATURE
ARTICLE:
Click on the link above to see a
wonderful historical essay (with photographs) written by Kathey Kelley Hunt,
Kaufman County Historical Commission.
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HISTORICAL
MARKER:
"As did many Texas counties of the
era, Kaufman County created a poor farm in 1883 in orderr to
provide the indigent residents and families of the area with
food, shelter, and medicine. This work program replaced earlier
relief efforts. All able-bodied persons were required to work,
including resident guards and county inmates convicted of minor
crimes who were originally brought from the jail daily for
labor; by 1893 they were housed on the farm. In the 1930s the
farm was used to demonstrate new agricultural techniques.
Usually filled to capacity, the farm operated until the 1970s.
By 1997. a cemetery and a few buildings remained. (1997)"
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| LOCAL
NOTES:
In March 1998, during Kaufman County's
Sesquicentennial celebration, a Texas State Historical Marker was
erected on the Poor Farm site by the Kaufman County Historical
Commission.
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| PERSONAL
NOTES FROM READERS:
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| RECORDS:
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| CEMETERIES:
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"From the earliest annals of Kaufman County
history there had always been a "place of burial" for transients
and persons who died while in jail, and a place where
"quarantined" persons were buried away from the populace. It is
not known the exact date that this practice began, but in 1871
persons who were victims of a typhoid fever epidemic were ordered
buried on "Dr. Snow's place" and that site is now know as the
Kaufman County's Indigent Graveyard and is located on the north
side of Highway 34 on land that was once a part of the County
Poor Farm. That land is still used today as a burial site for
indigent dead." (from the historical
article by Kathey Kelley Hunt
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READ THE CEMETERY STORY
(with photos & lists) |
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